The 122-key La Residence Hotel and Spa in Vietnam Appoints
Phan Trong Minh as General Manager

HUE, Vietnam (Jan.
21, 2013) — Twenty years after Vietnam emerged from decades of
war and
privation, lighting up on the radar screens of travelers worldwide,
maturation
of the country's hospitality industry reached a new milestone this
month as La
Residence Hotel & Spa appointed Phan Trong Minh as its new general
manager.

The Hue native
succeeds a string of foreign general managers and marks a turning point
in
Vietnam's hospitality industry.

"For so many
decades, Vietnam's hospitality industry lay dormant, preoccupied as it
was by
the First and Second Indochina Wars, and then a decade and a half of
really
really tough times after 1975," said Kurt Walter, group general manager
of
Apple Tree Group Hospitality, an owner of La Residence Hotel & Spa.
"There was no Lausanne School here, no Cornell, and for so long, no
hotels
of world class stature to groom the ranks of local management. But
those days
are over."

Today, he said,
foreign travelers can be the beneficiaries of world class accommodation
and
local management. La Residence Hotel was lauded by Condé Nast
Traveler
on its Hot List in 2007 and one year ago won a place as one of Asia's
top 20
resorts in Condé Nast Traveler's Reader's Choice Awards.

Minh’s journey to the top
spot at La Residence began in the former Czechoslovakia, not
as a
hotelier but as an assembly line worker in a company that manufactured
electric
goods.

“This was back in
1982,” said Minh. “I’d just graduated from high school, and Vietnam was
still
struggling to develop its economic foundation. So, like so many
Vietnamese of
my generation, I went to Eastern Europe.”

After six years in
Europe, Minh returned to Vietnam and in 1993 started work as a waiter
at the
Century Hotel, then one of the city’s top three hotels. Two years
later, he
transitioned to a job as a receptionist, and then on to work as a front
office
supervisor.

After 12 years at the
riverside hotel, Minh worked two years in management at another top Hue
hotel
before joining La Residence in 2007 as the front office manager.

Aside from his native
Vietnamese, Minh is fluent in English and speaks basic French. He is
certified
in small hotel management, and as a trainer for human resources and
front
office operations with the Vietnam Tourism Certification Board.

Unlike so many
general managers at the country’s top hotels, Minh was born in the city
he now
represents as its leading hotelier. Like many from Hue, he is
passionate about
his city, and the role his family has played in its heritage, and the
preservation of that heritage. One of his family members is a renowned
historian and an aunt is the great-granddaughter of Emperor Dong Khanh.

“Minh is born of an
old Hue family,” said Walter. “This adds an incredible dimension to the
guest
experience at La Residence.”

ABOUT LA RESIDENCE
Set on a two-hectare site with 200 meters
of frontage on the fabled Perfume River, La Residence celebrated its
grand
opening in December 2005 after a painstaking restoration of the former
colonial
governor’s residence. The hotel’s distinctive bowed façade, its
long horizontal
lines and nautical flourishes are hallmarks of the streamline moderne
school of
art deco architecture.

The
hotel’s 122 rooms and suites, restaurants, lounges, bars and conference
room
are tricked out in complementary art-deco furnishings and décor
that evoke both
the 1920s and 1950s. The hotel’s fine-dining venue, Le Parfum, serves
Mediterranean and French cuisine, as well as dishes from an expansive
Vietnamese menu. Its conference facilities, including board
rooms,
can accommodate 140 guests.